KARACHI, Dec 29: Speakers at a meeting on Monday pointed out that gender issues were not on the priority of majority of the political parties, so the activists will have to wage a long struggle to ensure due rights for women.

Speaking on the first day of a two-day annual national experience-sharing meeting, organized by the Aurat Foundation, they stressed that along with the women parliamentarians and the political party leadership, networking be established with the common women and political workers also.

They said that though nearly a year has passed, very little success had been achieved in solving the gender issues, as many of the women parliamentarians had probably not worked with as much commitment as they had promised earlier, or may be they were not allowed to work effectively by the system.

They said that workers of political parties had not been sent to the parliament, and in many cases the women parliamentarians were either the relatives of the party chiefs or other top leaders, adding that many of these women members had no background relating to the gender issues.

They deplored that it was revealed that the messages or material given to the women assembly members of many parties, at seminars and consultations, had not been discussed or even provided to the central command of the parties.

They, however, said that the women members of just one religio-political party had given the material to their party’s central decision making body, which proved that many of the women political activists and parliamentarians took the seminars or consultations held on the gender related issues seriously.

They said that attitude of many of the women, who had been attending the seminars, symposia, consultations etc held on the gender issues, or other such issues like the Hudood Ordinance, etc, and had shown commitment with the cause earlier, had changed their views after they became the councillors or members of the parliament.

They said that it seemed that priority of some of the women, who once pledged to highlight gender issues when they entered the parliament, had also changed as a resolution in support of Hudood Ordinance was unanimously adopted by the NWFP Assembly, though some of the women MPAs, prior to their elections, had expressed their commitment to the issue.

They said that those parliamentarians, who supported the discriminatory laws came more prepared after doing their homework and participated in the parliamentary debates more actively as compared to the women parliamentarians, who were against the discriminatory laws wanted to solve the gender issues.

They suggested that training workshops on gender issues be held for the women parliamentarians, as many of them had been elected for the first time, to sensitize them regarding the issue, and to urge them for work within the parliament to resolve the issue.

They also pointed out that due to the LFO-related debates, most of the parliamentary year was consumed by the opposition parties, so the parliament could not pay much attention to other important matters, adding that now that some understanding had been reached on the LFO issue, some other issues would also be discussed and hopefully solved.

They said that the issue of putting an age ceiling for retirement of air hostesses was also discriminatory and the Aurat Foundation had taken up the issue.

They said that some achievements had also been made by the activists as the religious parties were now supporting that women be given their proper share in inheritance, and were publicly talking against the customs of Swara, Vani, honour killings, karo kari etc.

Anis Haroon, Sajid Mansoor Qaisrani, Nuzhat Shirin, Naeem Mirza, Uzma Saeed, Saadia Mumtaz, Aimal Khan, Rukhshanda Naz, Younus Khalid, Salman Abid, Neelam Shah, Andaleeb Chaudhry, Tahira Abdullah and others also spoke.